Crisis postponed. On Friday, Greece, the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) brokered a four-month extension of bailout loans to the newly-installed government of Alexis Tsipras…

Decades ago, before Yanis Varoufakis became the rock-star finance minister of Greece, he and I developed some game-theoretic models of macroeconomics. The gist of the work was this: for monetary authorities…

If there is one band in the world that deserves intellectual exploration, it has to be Kraftwerk. Founded in 1970 in Düsseldorf, the two founding members, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, forever changed…

By giving powers away to Scotland, the UK could yet gain.
Mangostock29 January 2015

The new powers that look set to be devolved to Scotland include major changes for disability policy. Until now, Holyrood’s involvement in this area has been restricted to the NHS and social care – and…

Unfortunately, I will not see Germany: Memories of a Nation at the British Museum because it closes this weekend – and I live in Perth, Australia. As a result, I am unable to speak about my personal response…

A joke that is often told among European leftists these days portrays the current situation between Germany and Greece quite accurately. An officer at the passport control at Athens airport asks a tourist…

Greece is again making headlines, and markets are concerned the euro crisis is back. Actually, the crisis never left. It is just that for a little while both the authorities and the markets chose to cherish…

Anti-Islamic protesters on the march in Berlin.
Bernd Von Jutrczenka/EPA7 January 2015

A rally in Dresden has attracted some 18,000 people, all marching under the banner of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident. The sudden appeal of this group, known as PEGIDA, has…

Merkel in the middle as Greek debt clouds the vote.
Hindrik Sijens6 January 2015

Germany has sent the message that a Greek exit from the eurozone might be the lesser of two evils. It has been interpreted as a warning to the Greek electorate ahead of its January 25 election as left-wing…

What would a Eurozone trade agreement with Australia involve?
AAP/EPA/KAY NIETFELD23 December 2014

Shortly after the G20 summit in Brisbane, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced initiatives to increase trade and investment relations between Germany and…

The expansion of higher education in the UK has been driven by a political desire to increase economic growth and to promote social mobility at the same time by drawing more graduates from a larger pool…

Andreas Scheuer, secretary general of the German party considering proposals for make migrants speak German at home and in public.
Sven Hoppe/EPA8 December 2014

A proposal in Germany to make all migrants speak German in public and at home has ignited a heated debate about immigration and language. The proposals come from the German Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU…

The German-Jewish painter and writer Paul Cohen-Portheim had spent a peaceful summer in 1914 visiting friends in Devon and enjoying the beautiful south-west coast. But his idyllic holiday came to an abrupt…

Germany and the rest of Europe are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the associated communist regimes in Eastern Europe. This event had colossal repercussions in the…

Angela Merkel has thus far closed her eyes to the need for more spending, at her country’s peril.
Reuters21 October 2014

There’s growing pressure on Germany to spend more to support Europe – and for good reason. But it’s proving to be a hard sell to the country’s leaders. Germany’s budget is balanced and the government insists…

The German switch to green electricity has demanded quick thinking.
Martin Capek20 October 2014

Germany is well on its way towards having a predominantly green electricity supply. The transition from nuclear and fossil fuel electricity to using renewables is happening faster than anyone had anticipated…

Remember the big, somewhat bulky Mercedes Benz cars of the early 1990s? State-of-the-art at that time, they left their competitors behind on Germany’s autobahn. Mercedes is still here today, but the autobahns…

Counting your blessings. A worker at a chocolate factory in Germany.
Jan Woitas/EPA9 September 2014

Germany’s strategy for export-led growth has set the Eurozone up for a fall. Plans to introduce minimum wages in 2015 might be too little too late for European countries locked in a futile game of beggar-thy-workforce…